Obama vs. the other guy, 2008

Greenspan Sends McCain Back to Remedial Economics Class

Alan Greenspan says the country can’t afford tax cuts of the magnitude proposed by Republican presidential contender John McCain — at least not without a corresponding reduction in government spending.

“Unless we cut spending, no,” the former Federal Reserve chairman said Friday when asked McCain’s proposed tax cuts, pegged in some estimates at $3.3 trillion.

“I’m not in favor of financing tax cuts with borrowed money,” Greenspan said during an interview with Bloomberg Television. “I always have tied tax cuts to spending.”

This is a major boon to the Obama campaign. McCain has taken quite a bit of heat for his admission that he doesn’t know much about the economy, and the Obama campaign has hit him on this quite a bit:

It’s good to see in the article that the Obama campaign immediately pounced:

Democrats pounced on Greenspan’s comments, in part because McCain professed last year that he was weaker on economics than foreign affairs and was reading Greenspan’s memoir, “The Age of Turbulence,” to educate himself.

“Obviously he needs to go back to that book and study it some more,” Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said during a conference call arranged by the campaign of Democratic nominee Barack Obama.

“That’s a huge amount of money, but it’s not even a drop in the bucket to pay for $3.5 trillion in tax cuts,” she said. “So, every time he throws up earmarks and he’s asked how he’s going to pay for it, he knows he’s being disingenuous, he knows he’s not being forthcoming.”

This quote is just ripe for an AD, and I hope the Obama campaign is in the studio, ready to get this on the air.

This is not the kind of thing that gives people pause. Rather than focus on the merits of his plan, he needs to say that he’s focusing on you.

“Rather than use an ad about McCain’s lack of email proficiency, he needs to say directly – John McCain wants to provide people who make $x a tax cut of $x. Your tax cut? Well, if you make less than $x, you only get $x.” He needs to continue on his “it’s about you.” Rather than get angry or even, YOU want to get this country back on the right track.

That means a government that puts your interest ahead of special interests. So, instead of giving the guy who called YOU a nation of whiners deregulation that has helped to create the housing mess, we want to make sure that NEVER again are you going to be taken bamboozled into accepting a bad loan.

He needs to make this election about YOU.

In other news, the McCain bounce is starting to fade. A couple more weeks of pounding heading up to the debate should be good.

If we can discredit him further on the economy, which is often wrongly seen as the Democrats’ weakness since Republicans used to be known for fiscal conservatism, then I think we can show that this man is not what he seems.

About Strategy ’08

Strategy ’08 is a new blog dedicated to covering issues surrounding the 2008 Presidential Campaign between Barack Obama and John McCain. Authors are long-time bloggers and unabashed Barack Obama supporters dansac, slinkerwink, turneresq, zenbowl, smash artist and gdh1 who often post on DailyKos and elsewhere.